tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-310798012024-09-28T15:12:58.258-07:00Mainframe News. Weekly.Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17169161306180859923noreply@blogger.comBlogger76125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-27807219754234413532007-10-15T11:29:00.000-07:002007-10-15T11:48:11.536-07:00

Hi Folks, This week I want to point you to The Mainframe Update, a new newsletter that Xephon launched last week at www.mainframeupdate.com. This newsletter is designed to bring you information from all over the web. News items, announcements, tips, tools and tidbits from the web that you may have missed. Additionally, Trevor Eddolls, has a like-titled, but independent new blog over at

Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17169161306180859923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-44771722447257268832007-10-08T00:50:00.000-07:002007-10-08T01:02:06.387-07:00

In October 1985 the very first CICS Update was put together. Since the summer that year, articles had been coming in to the Xephon office. Created on an Apple II using the Zardax word processing program, the first issue of CICS Update was printed out and sent to the printers at the beginning of November. Early in December, issue 1 arrived on the desks of subscribers. The Updates were born. I

Trevor Eddollshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04547567673817096551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-27990512581613333812007-09-30T07:38:00.000-07:002007-09-30T07:40:05.261-07:00

The Titans, in Greek mythology, were originally twelve powerful gods. They were later overthrown by Zeus and the Olympian gods. I'm not talking about them. Nor am I talking about the fictional characters created by Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson in their Legends of Dune novels. Today I want to talk about an interesting announcement from NEON Enterprise Software (www.neonesoft.com) called

Trevor Eddollshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04547567673817096551noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-51187503670252571872007-09-24T00:45:00.000-07:002007-09-24T00:54:12.677-07:00

How Green Was My Valley is a 1939 novel by Richard Llewellyn and a 1941 film directed by John Ford. It was written and filmed in the days when green was just a colour and not an aspirational life style. I blogged about IBM’s green data centre plans a few months ago, but I wanted to revisit this whole issue. There does seem to be a lot of misconceptions about what’s green and what isn’t, and it

Trevor Eddollshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04547567673817096551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-15477470203753405862007-09-17T01:40:00.000-07:002007-09-17T01:45:02.237-07:00

It had to happen – I was bound to be sent a DOCX file. This is the new file type associated with Microsoft Office 2007. It’s all to do with the Office Open XML format Microsoft is keen on, and, of course, my copy of Office 2000 can’t open it. To be fair, Microsoft does have download that allows Office 2000 to open DOCX files, but it comes with health warnings and caveats, so I haven’t tried it.

Trevor Eddollshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04547567673817096551noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-37294475421748552022007-09-10T00:45:00.000-07:002007-09-10T00:54:34.681-07:00

It was only a couple of weeks ago that I was blogging about social networks on the Internet and how I thought that Facebook was being colonized by older people not just students and other youngsters. And now I find that Facebook is being treated by some companies as the most evil thing since the last virus or worm infection! What’s happened is that Facebook has caught on, and a large number of

Trevor Eddollshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04547567673817096551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-76320889569947494262007-09-03T01:52:00.000-07:002007-09-03T02:02:38.617-07:00

I can still remember those distant days of the 1990s when everyone you spoke to “knew” that mainframes were doomed to extinction, and dates were confidently predicted when the last one would be turned off. These sit alongside, in terms of accuracy, predictions about how many computers a country would need in the future – I think two was the best guess, just one fewer than in my office at the

Trevor Eddollshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04547567673817096551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-66372513798447880812007-08-27T04:50:00.000-07:002007-08-27T05:06:01.935-07:00

I am just back from China and suffering from the usual affects of jet lag – so just a short blog (you’ll be pleased to hear). I thought I’d pass on lots of Chinese wisdom, but you’ve probably heard them all before. Anyway, as I think they say, the longest blog begins with a single word! So, I was thinking about my IP address now that I’m back – I was wondering what it was. So I downloaded a

Trevor Eddollshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04547567673817096551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-55987276403276743282007-08-10T06:15:00.000-07:002007-09-17T01:40:11.522-07:00

Someone was telling me that some top IT people who write blogs regularly and have a presence on Facebook and Myspace, etc are now so busy with these Web-based interactions that they don’t have time to do their real jobs properly. So, they employ people to live their Web life for them while they get on with their proper work! This is to confirm that I am really writing this blog and I don’t

Trevor Eddollshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04547567673817096551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-17679570101723851762007-08-06T00:23:00.000-07:002007-08-06T00:38:33.133-07:00

Last week I was talking about AIX 6, which IBM is making available as an open beta – which means anyone can test it out so long as they report their findings to IBM. This week I want to talk about Viper 2, the latest version of DB2 9, which is also available as a download for beta testers. You can register for the Viper 2 open beta program at www.ibm.com/db2/xml. The commercial version is slated

Trevor Eddollshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04547567673817096551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-24460253040860293952007-07-30T00:41:00.000-07:002007-07-30T00:43:12.781-07:00

IBM has announced that it is making available an open beta of AIX Version 6.1 – an upgrade to the currently available version of AIX. Now, the questions that immediately spring to mind are: is this a good thing? and why is IBM doing it? Before I try to answer my own questions – or at least share my thoughts about those questions – let’s have a look at what AIX 6.1 has to offer. The big news is

Trevor Eddollshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04547567673817096551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-6628382428999000282007-07-23T01:52:00.000-07:002007-07-23T01:55:14.147-07:00

Without wishing to get all mushy about it, this is my blog’s birthday! It’s one-year old today. This is blog 52 and blog 1 was published on the 19th July 2006. I’ve tried to comment on mainframe-related events that have caught my eye, and at times I have blogged about other computer-related things. I discussed stand-alone IP phones, problems with my new Vista laptop, wireless networks. I also

Trevor Eddollshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04547567673817096551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-43936997813417917062007-07-16T00:50:00.000-07:002007-07-16T00:55:07.331-07:00

Today (Monday 16 July 2007) is my youngest daughter’s 21st birthday – so happy birthday to Jennifer. I started to think how things were different 21 years ago from how they are today – and hence I stole the title from Bob Dylan’s third album (released 1964) for the title of this blog. 21 years ago I’d just started working for Xephon (which I still do). I had a small laptop at home that I used

Trevor Eddollshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04547567673817096551noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-87897821360813829082007-07-09T00:39:00.000-07:002007-07-09T00:47:02.244-07:00

You’re an IBM mainframe user, where can you go for help with your mainframe problems? (If you were thinking of more personal problems, you’re reading the wrong blog!!) Well, my obvious answer would be Xephon’s Update publications (see www.xephonusa.com) or, perhaps, a search on Google (www.google.com), but IBM has recently introduced Destination z (http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/destinationz/

Trevor Eddollshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04547567673817096551noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-33231788858875061662007-07-02T02:15:00.000-07:002007-07-02T02:17:47.018-07:00

A while ago I mentioned in this blog about IBM’s ECLipz project – their unannounced and mainly rumoured plan to create a single chip for System i, System p, and System z (hence the last three letters of the acronym). The big leap forward in this plan (according to rumour mills on the Web and elsewhere) was the much-touted Power6 chip, which IBM finally unveiled at the end of May. Before we look

Trevor Eddollshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04547567673817096551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-41118969380978434822007-06-27T08:39:00.000-07:002007-06-27T09:18:43.965-07:00

Today, our friends at z/Journal launched a Mainframe Job board dedicated to helping mainframe professionals locate new career opportunities quickly and effectively. Additionally, if you have jobs that you need to fill, the site also offers low cost opportunities for you to promote those positions. For more details, visit the job board. -colin

Colinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17169161306180859923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-73192710039668590672007-06-25T00:56:00.000-07:002007-06-25T00:57:44.270-07:00

It looks like IBM has a plan. A number of recent events seem to indicate that IBM has decided how it wants things to look this time next year, and has started to set about making it happen. What am I talking about? Well I have in mind the recent acquisition of Watchfire, a Web application security company, and the “Web 2.0 Goes to Work” initiative. Watchfire has a product called AppScan, which

Trevor Eddollshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04547567673817096551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-54453537467366730882007-06-18T00:25:00.000-07:002007-06-18T00:29:37.194-07:00

IBM’s SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) conference, IMPACT 2007, attracted nearly 4,000 attendees to Orlando, Florida. IBM used the occasion to make some software and services announcements. IBM introduced a new mainframe version of WebSphere Process Server, which, they claim, automates people and information-centric business processes, and also consolidates mission-critical elements of a

Trevor Eddollshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04547567673817096551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-43448140248355987802007-06-11T02:12:00.000-07:002007-06-11T03:26:54.235-07:00

Let’s start with a caveat: I’m calling this a beginner’s guide not a complete guide – so, if you know of a product that I haven’t mentioned, sorry, I just ran out of space. Now the thing is, on a mainframe, we’ve got z/VM, which is really the grandfather of all these fashionable virtualization products. In fact, if I can use a science fiction metaphor, VM is a bit like Dr Who, every few years it

Trevor Eddollshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04547567673817096551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-82619179771845506762007-06-04T01:04:00.000-07:002007-06-04T01:37:53.820-07:00

The April/May 2007 issue of z/Journal (http://zjournal.tcipubs.com/issues/zJ.Apr-May07.pdf) has an interesting article by Philip H Smith III entitled, “The state of IBM mainframe emulation”. Emulation is a way of letting hardware run software that shouldn’t be able to run on that hardware! It’s an extra layer of code between the operating system and the hardware. The operating system sends an

Trevor Eddollshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04547567673817096551noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-52729174254351944852007-05-28T02:19:00.000-07:002007-05-28T02:22:37.036-07:00

OK, I’ve stolen the title from Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film – or from the title of Alice Walker’s 1982 novel. And this blog has nothing to do with racism, but it is to do with colours – the colours you see on your computer screen. I have recently been using a little device called a Huey (from Pantone/GretagMacbeth – http://www.pantone.com/pages/products/product.aspx?pid=79&ca=2), which is a

Trevor Eddollshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04547567673817096551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-11490935307328670852007-05-21T00:44:00.000-07:002007-05-21T01:23:07.549-07:00

Let’s make it clear, this isn’t a personal rant – although I am finding the lack of Vista drivers for devices that happily attached to my XP laptop a bit frustrating – it’s a look at recent news stories and their significance. Firstly then, there’s Adobe, who have announced that Vista-compatible drivers for Postscript-enabled printers will be available in July. Hang on, didn’t Vista appear in

Trevor Eddollshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04547567673817096551noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-82743191456628915082007-05-14T01:13:00.000-07:002007-05-14T01:16:09.000-07:00

I must have been messing around at the back of the class recently, because I have only just heard of aglets – a portmanteau word created from agent and applet – that run with distributed DB2 databases. A mobile agent is an exceptionally clever piece of software that can migrate during execution from machine to machine in a heterogeneous network. Once it arrives on a new machine, the agent then

Trevor Eddollshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04547567673817096551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-50725553166158502322007-05-07T02:44:00.000-07:002007-05-07T02:47:12.334-07:00

You might very well think this is a strange title for a blog – after all, they seem like two completely different things. It’s like saying apples versus mountain bikes! However, think about it a little deeper. Both of them are trends in computing and both would take IT departments in totally different directions. At some stage, managers are going to have sit down and decide which route they are

Trevor Eddollshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04547567673817096551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31079801.post-20552218484844450152007-04-30T03:45:00.000-07:002007-04-30T04:06:30.076-07:00

I mentioned in last week’s blog that I’d been to Mainz in Germany with IBM. The focus of the meeting was on SMB customers rather than mainframe users, although I would guess plenty of mainframe sites have a host of other boxes around the place. One thing that surprised me was the number of horror stories they could quote of sites that had a number of x86 servers around the company, but weren’t

Trevor Eddollshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04547567673817096551noreply@blogger.com0